Tag: policy

The new blacklist

6:08 pm

The new blacklist.

As columnist Maggie Gallagher pointed out during the furor over Proposition 8, “Targeting an entire business because one person associated with it made (in their personal capacity) a donation to a cause is brand new.” Some gay activists are one step away from claiming that if someone disagrees with them, they shouldn’t be allowed to work anywhere. The original Hollywood blacklist never went that far, but you won’t see any movies made about the current intolerance of supporters of traditional marriage. [emphasis mine]

Read the whole article. It very clearly illustrates the reality today that if you disagree with the gay movement in any way, they are increasingly demanding that you should not be allowed a job anywhere, and your career, life, and family should be destroyed.

That doesn’t sound like the actions of an oppressed minority, does it?

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Telescopes of the future

11:27 pm

Two stories were published on Thursday about two very different future space telescopes. Both are worthwhile, but the differences between them illustrate how the industry of space astronomy — like manned space — is evolving from Big Science and government to small, efficient, and privately built.

First there is this story describing how the nonprofit B612 Foundation’s project to launch an infrared telescope by 2017 had passed its first technical review.
» Read more

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“A profound disdain for the Constitution.”

9:17 am

“A profound disdain for the Constitution.”

The article quotes numerous Constitutional scholars, cites numerous examples of abuse by Obama, and repeatedly makes this same point:

Multiple experts interviewed for this article cited the Obama administration’s willingness to disregard laws for the sake of his policy goals as evidence that the president is disregarding the Constitution.

The last thing a free nation needs is a leader who has contempt for the law.

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A new survey of 13,575 physicians had found that doctors are fleeing the field.

6:45 pm

Finding out what’s in it: A new survey of 13,575 physicians had found that doctors are fleeing the field.

The survey also found that over the next one to three years, more than 50 percent of physicians will cut back on patients seen, work part-time, switch to concierge medicine, retire, or take other steps likely to reduce patient access.

But don’t worry, “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period.” Not!

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To avoid the cost of Obamacare, companies are reducing their full time stuff and switching as many employees to part-time as possible.

9:18 am

Finding out what’s in it: To avoid the cost of Obamacare, companies are reducing their full time staff and switching as many employees to part-time as possible.

It is very simple. The regulatory cost of Obamacare is so high companies are doing anything they can to avoid it. It is for this reason that they stopped hiring almost the instant the law was passed, and are now scrambling to find other ways to survive outside its influence.

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The Obama administration had declared that a company whose sole business is to publish Bibles is not religious enough for an exemption to the HHS contraceptive mandate.

9:22 am

The Obama administration had declared that a company whose sole business is to publish Bibles is not religious enough for an exemption to the HHS contraceptive mandate.

The company has of course gone to court. The mandate itself is odious and unconstitutional. It is not the business of the federal government to decide who is religious and who is not. Nor is it that government’s business to force behavior on anyone that they do not believe.

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It now appears that Democratic Senator candidate Elizabeth Warren practiced law in Massachusetts without a Massachusetts license.

9:45 am

The law is such an inconvenient thing: It now appears that Democratic Senator candidate Elizabeth Warren illegally practiced law in Massachusetts without a Massachusetts’ license.

I reserved reporting this at first because, though she never had a Massachusetts’ license, she did have one from New Jersey. Since all her legal work appeared to be federal in natural, she had broken no laws. Now it appears otherwise.

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According to a poll of small business owners, more than 60% will either drop their employee healthcare plans or make their employees pay far higher fees when Obamacare goes into effect in 2014

4:27 pm

Repeal it! According to a poll of small business owners, more than 60% will either drop their employee healthcare plans or make their employees pay far higher fees when Obamacare goes into effect in 2014.

The worst part of this story however is this:

Pollster Bill McInturff noted that the combination of a bad economy, greater regulations and increased economic uncertainty have forced 24 percent of the firms polled to lay off workers, 23 percent to tap their own savings to stay open and 11 percent to kill health coverage for workers. “The climate in Washington is a concern to them,” said McInturff. Dan Danner, president of NFIB added: “Why would I invest in this environment?”

Those polled were so down on President Obama and Congress that many said they wouldn’t start a business today. Asked if they would start a new business, 55 percent said no. Among the reasons they cited were high taxes, health care costs, regulations and an uncertain economy.

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“Bias” is no longer a suitable description of the character of the media establishment. “Partisan toadies” may be a better one.

7:30 pm

“‘Bias’ is no longer a suitable description of the character of the media establishment. ‘Partisan toadies’ may be a better one.”

“Brainless fools” is another term I like. Also “Pravda.” “Irresponsible partisan hacks” also comes to mind. Consider this:
» Read more

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A Texas school district has banned the use of religious signs at football games, even if created entirely and freely by the students.

10:26 am

A Texas school district has banned the use of religious signs at football games, even if the signs were created entirely and freely by the students.

[According to Kevin Weldon, the district’s superintendent], legal counsel recommended that religious activities not be carried out, even if the are being organized and implemented by students. “Per the advice of TASB Legal, please do not allow any student groups to display any religious signs or messages at school-sponsored events,” the superintendent wrote in a letter to parents who are involved in organizing extracurricular activities.

So, according to the legal counsel for this school district, freedom of religion and speech is outlawed at any government event. What a crock.

The good news is that the students are refusing to back down, and intend to display even more signs at future events.

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The cost of regulations is 80 times higher than OMB’s estimate, according to the estimates of each individual government agency.

10:09 am

We’re more doomed than we know: The cost of government regulation is actually 80 times higher than OMB’s estimate, according to the estimates made by each individual government agency.

“While OMB officially reports amounts of only up to $88.6 billion in 2010 dollars,” said Crews, “the non-tax cost of government intervention in the economy, without performing a sweeping survey, appears to total up to $1.806 trillion annually.”

The $1.8 trillion number comes from looking at the estimates made by each agency and then adding them up.

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Congress is on a pace this year to pass the fewest laws in a single year since World War II.

10:15 am

Gridlock is good! Congress is on a pace this year to pass the fewest laws in a single year since World War II.

Just 61 bills have become law to date in 2012 out of 3,914 bills that have been introduced by lawmakers, or less than 2 percent of all proposed laws, according to a USA Today analysis of records since 1947 kept by the U.S. House Clerk’s office.

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Obama cracks down on free speech.

8:24 pm

Obama cracks down on free speech.

In order to spare themselves the sort of critical scrutiny to which they are unaccustomed, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have fallen in with the absurd claim that violence has broken out in eleven Muslim countries, and terrorists armed with RPGs and (reportedly) mortars carried out a military operation to assassinate a U.S. ambassador, as a result of a 14-minute YouTube video. As always, Obama’s first priority is to point the finger of responsibility elsewhere.

So the Obama administration cracked down on the Christian who made the film–essentially an amateur production–which is critical of Islam, but no more so than many Hollywood productions have been of Christianity. The federal government sent Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies to bring the filmmaker into custody on the pretext that his uploading the movie trailer to YouTube may have violated the terms of his probation on a bank fraud conviction. That led to the famous photo of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula being taken into custody.

Shameful, disgusting, and inexcusable. The Obama administration is essentially attacking American citizens for the evils committed by Islamic radicals half a world away.

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The science cuts from sequestration

3:47 pm

The journal Science today published this detailed look at the cuts that would occur in all the federal government’s various science programs should the automatic budget cuts outlined in the sequestration legislation occur on January 2, 2013.

Not surprising, the article includes a great deal of moaning and groaning about the terrible harm the cuts would have on science research should they occur. From the Obama administration:
» Read more

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